


Sugar Snow

by Entwinedlove



Series: Twelve Days of Death Eater Xmas [9]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-25
Updated: 2017-12-25
Packaged: 2019-07-24 19:32:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 792
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16181708
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Entwinedlove/pseuds/Entwinedlove
Summary: While the witch is away the kids will play. Walburga's boys always seem to be getting into mischief.





	Sugar Snow

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Death Eater Express's 12 Days of Christmas  
> day 9 prompt: a toppled over Christmas tree / "You've got powdered sugar on your nose." / "If you eat all of those Christmas sweets, you'll make yourself sick."
> 
>  
> 
> [ ](https://i.imgur.com/czu4iCc.jpg)  
> 

Walburga Black had been out of the house Christmas shopping. She'd left her boys, both under ten, in the charge of her husband and her house elves. She expected them to be well-behaved and properly fed when she returned that evening.

That wasn't the case.

When she stepped into the front hall with her hands full of purchases, she noticed immediately that a number of the portraits were tilted and there were little white palm prints on them. She set her bags down and called for Criquet to put them away in her room so she could wrap them. As Walburga walked upstairs into the family parlour where she expected her family, she found a toppled over Christmas tree, broken ornaments, and even more little white handprints everywhere. The family cat, a dark and aged furball named Hephaestus was licking water from the half-empty bowl filled with water and tree sap from the fresh tree. She sent a light Stinging Hex at him for his bad behaviour and he squawked with an indignant squealing meow before he bolted out of the room, sliding the carpet half a foot across the floor. Walburga huffed in annoyance. She called for Criquet again, this time to fix the tree and the oriental carpet and to remind her to refresh Hephaestus's water bowl.

Walburga went downstairs, seeking her family, sure that if they weren't in the family parlour then surely, Orion would have them in the library working on their lessons. She found her husband but not her children. "Where are the boys?" she asked.

She had to ask twice before he glanced up at her from the tiny clock mechanism he was working over. "Huh?" he asked. When she asked a third time he waved in her direction and suggested she look in the kitchen.

She could feel her temper rising. Had he even noticed that she had been gone? Had he even unburied his nose from his obsessive tinkering to pay attention to his children? She pursed her lips and turned on her toes, intent to ignore him as he so easily ignored them. She spotted more white handprints and a few shoe prints as she heads down to the basement kitchen and called for Criquet again to clean up whatever it was.

Shrieks of boys' laughter and giggles greeted her as she made the descent into the basement. She rarely ventured into the servants' quarters of the house, finding them too grungy. She wasn't quite prepared for what awaited her at the butcherblock table. Both boys were coated in a fine layer of white powder over their faces, their pristine clothes, and their hands. The table was ladened with sweets. Gumdrops, cookies, fairy cakes, candy canes, chocolate pudding, and in the centre of the table was the largest gingerbread house she'd ever seen. It was crooked and the joints made with icing were slowly sliding apart. It was slipshod in its construction.

At the cooker, working on something else—Walburga hoped it was dinner—was Kreacher. His tea towel was dingy and stained and his fingers were coloured from creating the gumdrops and icing, but he was smiling.

She pursed her lips and cleared her throat. Regulus and Sirius both stopped giggling to look up at her. "Mummy!" Regulus called, jumping up and rushing at her. She held out her hand to stop him from touching her. He stopped short but reached up, offering her the partially eaten sweet in his hand.

"If you eat all of those Christmas sweets, you'll make yourself sick," she said in her most disapproving tone.

"But Mummy!" Regulus said again. He grinned and giggled and returned to Sirius who was sitting on both feet and leaning dangerously over the table to add a gumdrop to the gingerbread house.

She took a step further, to scold them and the elf for helping create this mess when the entire gingerbread house collapsed. One of them had left the open container of powdered sugar next to it, perhaps to pretend it was snow and sprinkle on the roof. Instead, it exploded into the air with the collapse of the house directly in Walburga's direction, coating her from her hair down to her toes in white sugary dust.

She suppressed a screech of frustration for only a moment when she heard a masculine chuckle from behind her. She turned sharply and glared at Orion, surely if he'd been supervising them as he should this entire mess would have been avoided.

"Orion!" she started, intent on scolding him before she turned her attention to the elf and the boys.

He interrupted her, however, with a grin and a gesture towards her face. "You've got powdered sugar on your nose, did you know?"


End file.
